Monthly Archives: January 2015

We’re proud to work with some of the best brands in the industry to provide bespoke solutions for our clients. These brands are world renowned for quality and their green credentials; just two of the reasons why we selected them as suppliers.

To help you stay up to date on the latest information and find useful articles online, here are some of the recent print highlights from our favourite brands:

Finally, Xerox have sent an extremely useful article on why you may need to reassess your Managed Print Services. If you’re under pressure to decrease your business costs, identify the hidden costs of your print equipment, or want to track and measure your printing, just get in touch to discuss Managed Print Services.

Smartphones are ubiquitous – even if your business doesn’t provide sales people with smartphones, it’s likely that your staff have used their phones for checking emails or other work tasks at some point. If they’re doing more and more of their work from smartphones and tablets, it makes sense to let them print from those devices.

At the moment, emailing items between the devices is the simplest way of getting them from place to place. Unfortunately, this wastes time and can present problems if you need to print a particularly large file.

PrintBack from Xerox Printers

That’s why Xerox launched PrintBack – an app for both Android and iOS devices that let you print to the device at work from your mobile or tablet. It works with any printer, regardless of connection type, manufacturer, or technology so you don’t even have to have a Xerox printer to use it.

Small businesses will be delighted to know that the app is free and incredibly easy to use. There are no issues with finding the right printer since it uses the one that’s already connected to your work computer.

What Else Does it Do?

If you’re not quite ready to print, you can use the connection to your work computer to save items to the download folder or to your Dropbox account. It’s basically a fuss-free way to connect your work computer to your phone and let you move documents between the different devices, depending on where you are and what you need to do.

Businesses seem to fall into two main camps; those to aim to go ‘paperless’ and those who depend on printing for their day to day admin. However, most offices could implement a few simple changes and significantly cut down on waste and excessive printing. 92% of people say that they print more than they need and then throw away up to a third of what they print. This waste costs UK businesses millions every single year.

Print less is surprisingly easy – a lot can be achieved by simply putting a policy in place and communicating it properly. However, using the tools at your disposal can reinforce that policy and monitor print activity to find further efficiencies.

Set up Print Authorisation

Depending on your office printers and photocopiers, you may be able to set up print authorisation. This means that a job isn’t actually printed until somebody goes to the printer and authenticates it. This can completely eliminate unclaimed documents and unnecessary print jobs. It can also cut down on excess printing through user error, such as pushing a print job through more than once since only one copy will be authorised.

Reduce Paper Processes

A lot of businesses still have a huge number of paper processes that require documents to be printed for filing or other admin. Scanning these documents and emailing them to colleagues or filing them in cloud storage can streamline your processes, reduce the need for dozens of filing cabinets, and reduce your print spend.

Create Efficient Default Printer Settings

You can reduce the number of pages printed within your business by changing the default settings on your printer. This will ensure that your employees print double sided sheets automatically, or all printing jobs are set to black and white. This is a far simpler way of reinforcing a policy as everybody will print that way you require unless they purposefully change the settings

Monitor Your Print Data

Print Management Software helps you monitor print usage and identify areas where a particular person, department, or floor can improve. You can analyse data to reduce print output and keep improving your processes.

We’re committed to the environment, which is why we only work with suppliers who have excellent green credentials and processes that minimise their impact on the environment at every step of the supply chain.

One of our print supply partners, Ricoh, compensates for their CO2 emissions by planting and conserving British woodland. Carbon Capture helps Ricoh remove CO2 by creating native woodland across the country; they remove just as much CO2 as they create. Ricoh also donate 2p per ream of paper to The Woodland Trust, which means that a tree is planted for every pallet bought.

This recent project was part of Carbon Capture’s Tree Planting Day in Heartwood Forest, Hertfordshire. The work by 150 participants ensured that the site will become the UK’s biggest continuous new native woodland.

Ricoh’s Carbon Capture scheme operates under the Woodland Trust’s Carbon scheme and the government’s Woodland Carbon Code, which is a voluntary standard for British woodland creation projects.

25m2 of woodland will capture and store a tonne of CO2, so creating large areas of new woodland will remove hundreds and thousands of tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere – something that will benefit the entire country and the entire planet.

Ricoh is just one of many suppliers we work with who have carbon offset and reduction schemes. We understand that print can have a huge impact on the environment if not managed effectively, which is why we have made our Green Promise to minimise that impact and help your business to do the same, whether it’s by using ethical suppliers such as Mode or improving your print efficiency so that you consume less.